


underpromotion

by shittycarmodsdaily



Category: SCP Foundation
Genre: Gen, guessihavetodestroythesefuckers.jpg, mfw im reading files and it turns out my brothers job wants to kill him inside, overwrought symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24868564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shittycarmodsdaily/pseuds/shittycarmodsdaily
Summary: underpromotion: (n.) the promotion of a pawn to a rank other than queen in chess(mikaela finds some files that send her on a different path than she normally would take.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	underpromotion

**Author's Note:**

> so meet mikaela blackbox aka "i ruined the point of iceberg's arc by giving him a sister" hope yall like her. this is technically an au version of her because i have shit work ethic and this is the intro story i actually finished and you all are just gonna deal with that

A storm is coming in. The air is so humid it’s almost unbearable, the low sound of thunder is audible on the horizon, and Mikaela, though she doesn’t know it, is at a crossroads. The storm, much as anticipating it is exciting, is more of a backdrop to a set of files she’s reading through at the moment. None of them seem very important to her current goals— they’re all nondescript, unessential; financial ledgers, performance reviews, transfer forms. In fact, she’s debating looking for something more relevant right now.

(And here is where so many other versions of Mikaela turn away, put the files down, search for something more relevant. Those Mikaelas don’t find it today, and most forget the whole thing completely. There’s no reason to remember a turning point you ignored to keep moving straight.)

Tiny raindrops begin hitting the half-open window of her motel room. The thunder rumbles closer. Mikaela looks out her window briefly and keeps reading. 

Another review. This batch of them seems to include comments in red type under certain sections (as far as she can tell, the red denotes that they’re not intended to be seen by the employees themselves, assuming wherever Julian is working isn’t just the kind of place that would say stuff like “easy to manipulate— assign to strong personalities” to someone’s face). This one for a Dr. “Iceberg”.

There’s a sharp crack of lightning outside, and she twitches for a moment, startled out of reading, before going back and finding something _interesting._

In parentheses, next to “Iceberg”, her little brother’s name, and suddenly she’s in laser focus. It’s a pretty uninteresting performance review, all things considered, but it’s the first new thing she’s heard of her brother in months. (The rain is in full swing now, gusts of wind blowing it through the window and onto her arms. She doesn’t notice.) _Exceptional ability with paperwork. Tendency towards aggressive behavior directed at coworkers. Consistently willing to work overtime._

And then the red comments. And, okay, she’s been reading through the files. She knows this organization is… harsh, to say the least, to its employees. She understands that there’s no special factor her brother possesses that would make him immune to that. She gets all of that. But, and maybe she’s stupid for this, the full extent of this harshness never quite sunk in as much as it does now reading through this file. _Predisposed towards social isolation; no work needed to be done in that regard. Low self esteem (will go to noticeable lengths for praise). Habitually mirrors others’ behavior— assign to Gears to downplay unwanted emotional expression and explosiveness._ Instructions to mold her brother into an empty, “useful” version of himself, insults regarding almost everything about him, delivered in red Verdana with no more emotion than you would give your taxes. 

When they were eight, once, Julian ran up, almost crying, and hid behind her at the edge of the school playground where she had been collecting interesting rocks. She asked him why he was crying, and he told her that the other kids insulted how he talked (he had a tendency at the time to stumble over words and cut off and restart his sentences). She remembers, looking at the review, very calmly asking him who said that to him, taking the largest interesting rock she had, and holding it in her hand like a threat as she walked up to the kids he named. Asking if they _wanted_ her to throw it at them since they were treating her brother like that. It was the same anger, she thinks, as she feels now, reading these notes, and she feels the same need to do something in response bubble up within her.

She probably can’t throw a rock at whoever wrote this, for a lot of reasons, but she’s a grown woman now. And she has something eight year old Mikaela didn’t: people with a common goal.

Throughout her research, she’s come across a number of organizations running counter to Julian’s workplace in various ways. She’s never put too much stock into researching them— he’s not _there_ , is he— but suddenly, for some odd reason, it seems like her priorities have abruptly shifted to run in parallel with theirs.

The storm begins to die down outside. The crossroads is over; her path is chosen. 

Mikaela has been told that she is frighteningly passionate, and she hopes that's true. She hopes when she puts her whole heart into destroying her brother's employers, they'll feel the same fear she felt reading out a list of ways to "correct" his "inadequacies". She hopes the focus of her gaze burns them.

**Author's Note:**

> it took so much not to end with just the entire navy seal copypasta
> 
> anti foundation!mikaela is "the red knight" in my head. do you get it. its like chess and like alison. yes im just spelling out the whole concept here. please appreciate the like 20 minutes i spent on the wikipedia chess glossary finding the word for "when you promote a pawn to a knight". anyway thank you for reading the cringe i posted ill be here all night my tumblr is @bottledick


End file.
